Everything you need to know about the Lunar Festival

The Lunar Festival is now live, and if you’re wondering what it is, I was too. Now keep in mind I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since it was released and I still didn’t know what it was, and that’s despite fighting Omen the very first year he was available. So if you don’t know what it is, don’t feel ashamed. Let’s learn all we can about this holiday together.

What is the Lunar Festival?

The Lunar Festival, at least as far as the game is concerned, is a big celebration of the original end of the War of the Ancients, back several thousand years ago. It’s fascinating that it just so happens to coincide with the Lunar New Year festival held in China, but it’s often funny how these things work out.  At any rate, yes, it’s another in-game holiday. It’s already begun this year, and runs until March 3 at 10:00 AM server.

There are a ton of fireworks you can set off in special firework launchers and that’s always fun.

So what do we do?

For starters, there are places in your various capitals where you can get a teleport to Moonglade to start celebrating the event. Also, did I mention there were lots of fireworks? That part’s pretty awesome. Find a Lunar Festival Harbinger in your capital city, who will refer you to the area outside of town where you can get the quest to launch fireworks and get teleported to Moonglade. It’s pretty simple, and there’s usually an Elder there to get you started on coins. This is especially helpful if you’re doing the Festival on a low level alt who hasn’t been to Kalimdor or Moonglade yet.

Then you go around the world and visit the ghosts of old people. No, not me, in-game old people — the Elders, ancient ghosts who symbolize the wisdom of the past. If you are leveling an alt, the Elders are worth solid XP (4000 XP each at level 40, I can confirm). There are various ways to find them, ranging fr0m blind luck to addons like HandyNotes, and Wowhead has a guide to finding them using TomTom as well. And the Elders aren’t just a solid source of XP: they give out Coins of Ancestry, which are the currency for the event. There are 71 elders throughout Azeroth and Northrend, so you can get started running around the world collecting the coins now.

What are these coins for?

Buying stuff, mostly.

This year the Lunar Festival has seen some updates to reflect that they need a reason for people to keep doing it. Look, I’m naturally cynical about holidays in WoW, but still, cool new hats. The Crown of Good Fortune, Crown of Courage, Crown of Prosperity, and Crown of Dark Blossoms will all cost you 25 Coins of Ancestry from Valadar Starsong, as will most of the other fun toys.

What other fun toys? Well, back in 2017 Blizzard added a cool dragon costume — one that requires three players to really do it justice, in fact. You can get the Dragon Head Costume, Dragon Body Costume, and Dragon Tail Costume and put together a three person dragon. The head and tail cost 25 Coins, while the body only costs 10, I have no idea why. These are all toys that will sit in your toybox, so you won’t have to pick them up again.

Other toys available include the Everlasting Alliance/Horde Firework. You can also spend Coins on the latest Heirloom upgrade item, if you’re so inclined.

Wrap up the holiday by killing an Ancient for a toy

You can also kill Omen to get Elune’s Lantern, a toy available through the quest Elune’s Blessing. Omen’s pretty tough — back in the day he was a raid boss and he’s still pretty significant. He doesn’t drop any loot, but hey, you don’t actually need to kill him to complete the quest and get the toy, either — just hang out while other people kill him and step into the light of Elune that descends after he dies and you get quest completion.

Omen was one of the Ancients who got so terribly tainted by the Fel that he begged for death. Huln Highmountain was the one who killed him, but every year he returns due to one of Elune’s blessings and we have to fight him all over again.

So that’s the Lunar Festival in 2018 — hats, toys, visiting a bunch of old dead folks for currency with which to buy said hats and toys, fireworks, and killing a two-headed dog monster for a lamp. It’s a strange way to celebrate beating the snuffing out of the Burning Legion 10,000 years ago, but there you go.